"No! I shall take no more than I can carry in my saddle-bags. We must not
be incumbered with pack-mules on an expedition of this sort. We may have
to ride for our lives."

"You are quite right, Señor Fortescue; so you may. I will see that you are
well mounted, and I shall be delighted to take charge of your belongings
until the patriots again, and for the last time, capture Caracas and drive
those thrice-accursed Spaniards into the sea."

Before we separated I invited Señor Carera to _almuerzo_ (the equivalent
to the Continental second breakfast) on the following day.

After a moment's reflection he accepted the invitation. "But we shall have
to be very cautious," he added. "The _posada_ is a Royalist house, and the
_posadero_ (innkeeper) is hand and glove with the police. If we speak of
the patriots at all, it must be only to abuse them.... But our turn will
come, and--_por Dios!_--then--"

The fierce light in Carera's eyes, the gesture by which his words were
emphasized, boded no good for the Royalists if the patriots should get the
upper hand. No wonder that a war in which men like him were engaged on the
one side, and men like el Commandant Castro on the other, should be
savage, merciless, and "to the death."

As I had decided to quit Caracas so soon, it did not seem worth while
presenting the letter to one of his brother officers which I had received
from Commandant Castro. I thought, too, that in existing circumstances the
less I had to do with officers the better. But I did not like the idea of
going away without fulfilling my promise to call on Zamorra's old friend,